


The Mirror Spied Upon Us

by Catchclaw



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Carisi Is A Tease, Condoms, Dirty Talk, Enthusiastic Consent, First Time, M/M, Mirror Sex, Mutual Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:54:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Barba goes to a conference. Carisi tags along.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 164





	The Mirror Spied Upon Us

They're in Chicago at an ABA conference where Barba is the keynote-- _Judge, Juries, and Vigilantes: The Face of Justice Post-2016_ , snore; their topic, not his--and Carisi’s tagged along, which is surprisingly fine. Truth be told, Barba appreciates the support from the home team, even if Sonny’s enthusiasm about it is painful. He actually thinks he’ll learn something from his peers, the poor bastard, will walk away a better lawyer than before, and Barba doesn't have the heart to tell him that what he’s tripping into is a snipers’ nest of ego where everyone’s convinced they already know everything and are there only to get laid or get drunk, neither of which is Barba's agenda despite the complimentary suite. No, he's there to open his mouth, dazzle his peers with his brilliance, and get the hell out before he melts. Fucking June.

"I'm a grumpy old man at these things unless I'm glad handing," he tells Sonny on the plane--the 7:30 am out of JFK, horror of horrors. There isn't a Venti-enough coffee in the world. "So you'll be better off if you make some new friends."

Carisi shrugs and leans his head against the emergency exit door; even here, his giraffe legs barely fit. "Eh,” he says, “I'll be fine. But if you're trying to find a nice way to _say leave me alone for the next two days_ , just say that. You won't hurt my feelings."

This is why he doesn't usually obfuscate, damn it. Now he feels like an ass and it’s too goddamn early in the day for that. "You know me,” Barba lies. “If that’s what I’d meant, then I'd have said it."

"Yeah?” The grin Sonny gives him is blinding. "Ok, cool. But don’t worry, I’ll stay out of your way. I promise I won’t hang onto your coattails or crowd your game or whatever."

"My game?" Barba shakes his head. "Did you not just hear what I said?"

Sonny waggles his eyebrows like a Muppet. It's ridiculous. It should not make Barba smile. "Yeah, I heard," Carisi says, "but you never know. Another city, not your own, all these people who think you’re brilliant, right? Who knows? You might meet the love of your life at this thing."

You might, Barba thinks, caffeine sagging under maudlin. You're young and not spectacularly uncynical and tall and in the right suit, you're gorgeous. You find the right person at the right moment this weekend and they won't stand a fucking chance.

But what he says is: 

"Here? Tsk. I hope to God not. I told you what kind of people generally show up at these things, detective. Do you think so little of me, or do you really think the universe could be so cruel?"

That shuts Carisi up--on that subject at least--and in the rush of their arrival, the prep for his keynote, the crush of the conference, Barba forgets all about it, mostly, the way his exhausted heart sat up and stretched its arms when Carisi said that shit about love.  
  
  


____________________________________

  
  


He forgets about it, mostly, until the second night, their last one, when on a whim he buys Carisi dinner at the hotel bar. It’s very Marriott, the bar: there’s a lot of sleek fake wood and smoky bulbs and decent if unremarkable food, but it’s easier than venturing out into the summer heat. Which just goes to show, lawyers; it’s 90 degrees at 8pm and everybody sipping Jack or merlot is still wearing a suit. 

They sit at a hightop near the bar and Sonny talks the whole time, his hands flying as fast as his words. He still manages to eat twice as much as Barba without losing a beat. Barba's tired, but it's kind of charming, actually; after two days of people of feigning friendly with people he doesn’t know, it's nice to sit back and let someone he doesn’t have to fool do the work. 

"What?" Carisi says, his fork halfway to his mouth. "I got sauce on my face or something?"

"Not that I can see.” Stop staring, Rafael, Christ. “But that sounds like a guilty conscience talking. Maybe you should err on the side of napkin."

Sonny scrubs at his mouth and reaches for his wine. He looks a little sheepish. "Sorry. My mom says I eat like a jackal. I usually do better when there's company.”

"I'm not company, Carisi. I'm a colleague."

"Pfft. You're not a colleague, Raf. You're a friend."

Huh. An interesting development. "Are we friends?"

Carisi squints at him for a moment, then laughs. "I mean, I think so, for whatever that's worth."

There's a warm feeling in Barba's gut that he doesn't entirely trust, but it doesn’t hurt to pick up his glass and raise it in a toast, does it? "For whatever it's worth," he says, "I do, too."

In the elevator, that feeling refuses to go away. No, it gets louder with Sonny standing next to him. Sonny who leans his head back against the wall with a contented little sigh and shows off his five o'clock shadow, bares the long line of his neck, and he is beautiful like that and utterly oblivious of it and God, if only Barba were oblivious as well. If only he didn’t ache to turn his face and tuck his mouth above Sonny’s collar and curl his body into the soft sounds that Carisi would make.

And he would, too; Barba knows it. The kid’s never hidden his infatuation. Oh, he’d long ago learned to tone down the overeager labrador schtick, to smooth it down under nicer ties and more expensive shirts, but it was still there, lurking, a pleasant undertow to their conversations that Barba had trained himself to overlook until Carisi had enough sense to outgrow it.

Five years, they’d known each other, and Barba was still waiting. Mostly. Wasn’t he? Sure he was.

The question is, he thinks in that hotel elevator: waiting for what?

"I'm going to make some terrible hotel coffee,” he says, in a way he chooses to believe is offhand. “Want to suffer with me?"

The car slides up two floors before Sonny answers. "Depends. You got any decaf?"

"Probably. The room has one of those terrible K-cup things." A beat. He keeps his eyes straight ahead on the mirrored doors of the elevator. "And a hell of a view."

Sonny laughs and bumps their shoulders together; Barba likes the way their reflections collide. "Yeah, ok. Sold."  
  


  
____________________________________

  
  


They sit on a low sofa by the wall of windows with the lights off and sip bad coffee out of paper cups, watching the lights play out over the city and bob beyond it on the lake. Sonny chucks his jacket on a chair. Barba deigns to loosen his tie.

“It’s beautiful here,” Sonny says.

“In Chicago, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am. I mean, I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I know from Chicago is the Cubs and Bears, you know. Oh, and President Obama.”

“Huh. Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to see more of it.”

Carisi looks at him. “Me, too.”

“But maybe you’ll come back here someday,” Barba muses. “Someday when it’s not 100 degrees and hell-adjacent humidity outside, preferably. It’s lovely here in the fall.”

“I’ll bet. You been here a lot?”

Barba shrugs. “Enough. There’s kind of a circuit for these things. East Coast one year, Midwest the next--sometimes LA or Seattle. You’ll see. A couple of years on this train and you’ll be intimately familiar with mid-market hotels with big, boring ballrooms all across the land.”

Sonny’s still looking at him, the corners of his mouth turned up a touch.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just like listening to you talk sometimes. Even when you’re pretending to be cynical.”

“That’s not cynicism, Carisi, that’s experience.”

“No, that’s you trying to act like none of this matters to you, but it does.” He sets his cup on the little table in front of the sofa and props his elbow on the back of the couch. “You’re good at what you do, Raf.”

“Damn right.”

“Yeah,” Sonny says, his voice warming, “exactly. And it’s ok for you to like when people tell you that.”

Barba sets his jaw. “Who says that I don’t?”

“You, a lot. You say you don’t care what they write in the papers, or what people on the street yell at you. You say that all that matters is what happens in court, that the only people whose opinions of you matter are juries, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“Ah, yeah,” Carisi says, like he’s scored a fucking point, “except it’s not. I’ve watched you all weekend; you fucking love it when people sing your praises.”

Something in Barba bristles. “I don’t need my ass kissed. I’m perfectly conscious of my abilities.”

“Tch, stop it. Come on. I'm not talking about mindless worship or something.”

“ _Mindless worship_?”

“I’m talking," Sonny says a little louder, "about genuine acknowledgement of your skill from those who know enough to appreciate it. That’s what fluffs your feathers. And these folks this weekend, they _know_.” Sonny stops. He swallows. “I know too, you know? But that’s different.”

Oh. Is it now.

“Why is that different?” Barba asks, aiming for indifferent. “You’re a member of the bar, as I recall.”

Carisi fiddles with his cuffs. “Because I know you,” he says. “At least I like to think I do. A little bit.”

“So your opinion doesn’t count?”

“So my opinion’s--complicated.”

The warm feeling from the elevator is back with several hundred of its friends; Barba’s chest feels like a forest fire, an echo of the one he can see burning balefully in Carisi’s cheeks. The undertow has become the current. Oh, God.

Barba clears his throat. “I see.”

“Yeah.” Sonny raises his head, and even shaded, there’s enough there to rob Barba of his breath. “You know it is, Raf.”

“And why is that?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Maybe I need to hear it.” His heart is in his throat and he can hear the strain in his voice, a violin string pulled too tight. “Isn’t that what you just said? That I love hearing from people whose opinions matter?”

Sonny makes a soft, choked sound. “Been trying to say it for ages. Never found the right words, I guess.”

“Then show me,” Barba says like a fool, because he is one, because Sonny’s right there and Barba is desperately sober, and he wants. Fuck, he wants. “Show me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?”

“No, I just--” Carisi sits up and pitches towards him a little. There’s a flush all the way down his throat. “I wanna makes sure you’re sure. You’re sure, right? Because if I kiss you, it’s gonna be hard for me to stop.”

Jesus. “If? What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

“How about a yes.” A long, firm hand finds his face. “Nice and clear, very simple. Would you say that for me, Raf?”

He doesn’t have to think about it. “Yes.”

Their mouths meet. Oh, the sound Barba makes.

“Yes,” he says again, soon enough, and he finds himself on the bed, Sonny pitched above him, grinning, grinding, sighing.

“Yes,” he says at last, a demand, and Sonny’s fingers slide inside him, cold and then not as the lube warms, as Barba does, Sonny’s kisses raining over the back of his neck.

“Fuck, that’s pretty,” Sonny murmurs. His mouth drifts back down Barba’s spine, his free hand brushing over Barba’s ribs. “So, so pretty.”

The sweetness in his voice makes something in Barba want to weep. He clenches his teeth. “Carisi.”

“What?”

“Less flattery, more fucking.”

“Who says I can’t do both?”

“ _Carisi_.”

“What?” Sonny says again, but it isn’t really a question. The twist of his fingers is, though; so’s the catch of nails in Barba’s hip. “Nobody’s ever told you how gorgeous you look when you’re desperate?”

“I am not--!”

Sonny chuckles and does something vaguely criminal with his wrist. “You are,” Carisi says, and damn if he doesn’t sound fucking delighted. “You should see how eager you are for me. Shit, I can barely get my fingers out, you’re holding on to me so hard.”

“I want your cock.” It’s supposed to come out as a command, because Carisi always did need direction. But the words are tattered, aching. “Sonny, fuck, come on, I need--”

Sonny shifts suddenly, his forehead against Barba’s back and the hot weight of his dick dragging inside Barba’s thigh and dear sweet God and all that is holy, Barba is going to die right here in Chicago in the middle of a fucking Marriott bed.

“Sweetheart,” Sonny mutters, “I know. I got you. Be still for a second, ok? You’re gonna be empty for a minute, but I’m coming right back. I promise.”

When he pulls out, Barba’s knees buckle and he goes face down in the sheets, trying to remember how to breathe, how to swallow, how to blink, and then he hears the rattle of foil and the wet curl of latex and the sound of Sonny’s deep, greedy sigh.

“Fuck, Raf. What you look like. God. All open and ready for me.”

“I can only imagine,” Barba says, barely. “But I’d rather not. Much rather be looking at you.”

“Hmmm.” Sonny curves his palms over the swells of Barba’s ass and smoothes his thumbs between them. Barba’s breath comes out in a hiss. “I think I can swing that. If I don’t lose it the second I’m inside you.”

Barba’s cock jerks, that _tonto_. “You’d better fucking not.”

A rumble, a firm, hot push at his core. A sweet noise that makes Barba writhe. “No promises,” Carisi murmurs. “I’ve wanted you for so long, so fucking long. You have no idea.”

And then he’s being tugged up by the hips until he’s upright on his knees and Sonny’s pushing into him, steady, heady, unfucking forgiving and it hurts, it always does, but Barba can feel it hovering just outside of its reach: how good it’s going to be having Sonny inside him, how good it’s gonna feel to get fucked by this gangly _jirafa_ of a man who adores him even though he’s seen Barba at his worst more than his best, a man who’s hauling Barba up and back into his lap and so he doesn’t have a choice but to take all of it.

“That’s it,” Sonny says, strangled. He rubs his mouth against Barba’s shoulder. “That’s good, huh? Is that good?”

Barba leans back because he can, because Sonny’s there to take his weight, to brace his arm around Barba’s middle and hold him close and tight. “‘S good,” he gets out. “But it’s a a lot. Gimme a minute, _querido_ , and then I want you to move.”

Sonny pets at his thigh. Barba can feel the strain in his body, how much effort it’s taking him to be still. Holy fuck, is that hot. “Do something for me,” Sonny says.

“What?”

A ghost of a grin on his cheek. “Open your eyes.”

There’s a mirror across from the bed. Ostensibly, it’s part of the dresser, but the position is too perfect; the whole bed is there, framed like a picture, and at the center are they.

“That can’t be an accident,” Barba says.

Sonny laughs, the vibration running down Barba’s back. “Definitely not. Whoever put this place together had a dirty mind. Bless ‘em for it.”

The stretch inside him is easing, the sense of being too full; Carisi’s gentle grip on his cock doesn’t hurt. Must be why Barba’s smiling. That and the shine in Carisi’s eyes, the way his hair’s falling in his face as he looms over Barba, beaming, affection and lust battling it out over the pretty planes of his face.

“Look at you,” Sonny says. Jesus, it’s reverent. “See that? See what I mean? Look how beautiful you are when I’m inside you.”

He keeps his eyes on Sonny’s face. “Move,” he says.

Sonny doesn’t. He nuzzles Barba’s throat and gives his dick another tug. “Tell me you don’t see it, Raf, how good we look together. Look how fucking hard I make you.”

“Don’t have to look,” Barba says. He tries to push back against Sonny’s dick, give him a goddamn hint, but the arm around his chest shunts down to brace his hips. “I can feel it. Shit, Sonny. Move.”

“No.” Sonny’s eyes find his in the mirror, tiger bright and wild. “Show me. Stroke it for me. I wanna watch you come while I’m giving it to you.”

“Are you giving it to me? I couldn’t tell.”

A grunt. “Touch yourself and I will.”

“You want to make me do all the work,” Barba gets out. “That’s what this is all about. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be getting me off? You’re fucking lazy, Carisi.”

“You always this bitchy when somebody’s got their dick inside you? Huh? Or did you save all your bad manners for me?”

His head falls back against Sonny’s shoulder and he’s grinning like a fool, he knows it. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Sonny hisses, and ah, shit, there it is: the flex of his body, a bow, a hard, needy shove, “ I think that if I had any sense, I’d pull out and make you take care of it yourself.”

“No!” It sounds desperate and oh, God, he is. Sonny was right. “Don’t you fucking _dare_.”

Sonny laughs, the sound dirty and hungry, and tips his hips back, the fat heat of him retreating from the clutch of Barba’s ass. “Oh, now I definitely should.”

A mortifying whine falls out of Barba’s throat. “Please,” he says, hoarse. “Please don’t leave me. I fucking need you.”

“Do you?”

“ _Yes_.”

A hum, a knowing kiss on his neck. A leisurely, greedy shove of that beautiful cock. “Mmm,” Carisi whispers. “Show me.”

In the morning, when the sun’s burning over Chicago and the day stretches ahead in legalese, Barba can beat himself up about this. He can consider why this small suggestion of humiliation when he’s at the mercy of a man ten years his junior who still views the world as beautiful when he sees the worst of it every day does something as profound to his heart as it does to his dick, but hell, the whys of it don’t matter now. What matters is the splay of Sonny’s fingers across Barba’s chest, the way the visual tracks with the feeling of Sonny teasing his nipples. What matters is the way his dick looks in his fist, red and purple and furious; the way it twitches with every slow, giving shove of Sonny’s hips.

“That’s it,” Sonny says in his ear. “Slow. Go slow for me, Raf. Ah, fuck, just like that. Are you wet?”

He turns his thumb over the slit; in the mirror, he shudders. “Yeah.”

“Good. That’s so good.” He kisses Barba’s hair. “I can tell how much you like it. You’re so tight.”

“I love the way that you’re fucking me.”

Sonny makes a hot, soft sound and strokes his hand down Barba’s stomach. “Yeah?”

He twists his wrist and pumps his fist faster, watches his reflection do the same. “Mmm. Don’t stop.”

“No,” Sonny says, fierce. “I’m not gonna. Not until you cream your hand and I cream your pretty little ass.”

Never mind that he can’t, that’s he’s wearing a fucking condom; just the thought feeling Sonny’s come dripping down his thighs makes Barba gasp. Crap.

In the mirror, Sonny’s eyes find his and fucking _sing_.

“You want me to do that? Fill you up till you’re dripping?” He pets at Barba’s balls and hitches into him, hard. “Oh, shit, yes. You’d make such a pretty mess.”

Barba’s dick twitches and he doesn’t care now about what he sounds like, what he looks like; he’s close, he’s so fucking close and Sonny is right there, big and hot and hungry inside him and doing nothing more than watching him and wanting him and a knot inside him unlaces, ribbons trailing from his _pendejo_ heart. Sonny will take care of him. Sonny’ll make sure he gets what he needs.

He slides his free hand over Sonny’s and watches their fingers tangle over his balls. Feels Sonny swear against his neck.

“Sonny,” he says. “ _Carino_. Tell me.”

Sonny takes a great, hitching breath. “You’d be a mess,” he says, his hips speeding up with his words. “You’d be mess because I wouldn’t be able to fuck you just once. Not if I was bare. Not if I could feel the way you’re squeezing me right now skin-to-skin. I’d lose it fast the first time and then I’d need you again so I could take my time, like this, fill you up slow so you can feel every inch of me, feel what you do to me. Shit, Raf, you make me so hard.”

“Fuck,” Barba breathes, and that in and of itself is a miracle. “ _Fuck_.”

And then the world is spinning because Carisi’s tugging him away from the mirror and pulling out and pressing Barba on his back and then he’s pushing in again, in and in and in and out and in again and it’s fucking glorious, it’s too much because Sonny is everywhere, all around him, his long body caging Barba’s in, the smell of his sweat and his arousal and his cheap stupid cologne hovering over Barba like a sweet, smothering cloud and when Barba gets his hands in Sonny’s hair and winds his legs around Sonny’s waist, Sonny whimpers and licks at his lips and then they’re kissing, hot and frantic and sloppy, and Christ, it’s been ages since somebody gave themselves to Barba like this.

“I’m gonna come,” Sonny tells him, the words a slur against Barba’s cheek. “I’m gonna come so fucking hard because of you, Raf.”

Barba turns his face and bites at Sonny’s mouth, tightens his grip on Sonny’s ass, the wave of something beautiful roaring up in his blood. “Do it,” he whispers. “Be a good boy and come in me now.”

Sonny’s back arches and he lets out a glorious howl and he drives in hard and harder and fast and then his ass is trembling in Barba’s hands and he’s moaning, pretty hurt sounds that make Barba see stars, makes his body feel like one because fuck, he can feel it inside him, Sonny’s heat.

_You want me to do that? Fill you up till you’re dripping? Oh, shit. You’d make such a pretty mess._

It isn’t Sonny’s come that he feels, he knows that, it’s lube, oozing out and around the base of Sonny’s cock but his dick does not fucking care.

“Baby,” Barba pants, shoving at Sonny’s shoulder. “Sonny, please.”

Sonny shudders inside him and thrusts again, lazy, which really, really does not help. “Hmm?”

“I need to touch my cock. I need to fucking come, darling.”

“Oh.” Sonny’s head pitches up and he gives Barba a big, dopey grin. “Yeah, you do, don't you? I’m sorry.”

“I’ll do it,” Barba says, because his hips are pumping in hungry little jerks, because his cock is so hard that it hurts. “It’s fine, can you just--?”

“I can, yeah,” Sonny says. He kisses Barba’s cheek, then his mouth. Then the bridge of his nose. “But you can jerk off on your own time, counselor. I’ve got a way better idea.”

When he pulls out, it stings, all that empty feeling, but then that shaggy head is pitched over his belly and Barba can feel Sonny’s breath. 

“Is this all right?” Sonny looks up, almost shy. “Is it ok if I put my mouth on your dick?”

“Yes,” Barba says again, and again and again, until he can’t speak anymore, and then his hips say it, his hands do, nails cutting into Sonny’s shoulders. _Yes. Yes yes yes_. And when he comes, there isn’t any sound, there can't be and it's beautiful because he’s given it all to Sonny. He doesn’t have anything left.  
  
  


____________________________________

  
  
  
“I fucking love you,” Sonny mumbles against his stomach, after. 

“Sure you do,” Barba sighs. “I let you suck my cock.”

A snort. “Believe it or not, even before that. Though sucking your cock was pretty nice, too, not gonna lie.”

He nests his hand in Sonny’s hair. His voice feels like molasses, thick and stupidly sweet. “Pretty nice? Don’t strain yourself, _carino_.”

Sonny pushes himself up, grinning, and reaches down to tug off the condom; better late than never. “I’m trying to save some adjectives for later,” he says. “When you’re awake enough to appreciate my vocabulary.”

“I’m awake.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a mess. And you’re welcome.”

The bed dips and he turns his head, sees Sonny standing naked beside the bed. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

The look on Sonny’s face kills him. Or would, if he weren’t mostly, happily dead already. “Uh. Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Ok.” A brilliant, sleepy smile. “Lemme clean up and I’ll be right back.”

In the morning, when they’re winging it through the friendly skies, Barba will set his mind to figuring out what the hell they’ve just leapt into. Is this a _thing_ , as the kids say, something that involves keys and shared closets and public declarations, or an out-of-town hiccup, a Chicago-fed folly, one time? Tomorrow, when there’s caffeine in his veins and no smell of come in the hair, it’ll all make sense. Probably. Of course it will. He’ll be able to figure this out, and then--

He hears the shades draw closed and the room goes dark. The bed dips again and Barba reaches for him; Sonny throws his arms around him and tucks his head against Barba’s chest.

“You,” Sonny says, “are the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen. I just thought you should know that.”

Barba kisses the top of his head. He feels impossibly fond. “Thank you.”

“Welcome. Thank you.”

“For what?”

Sonny squeezes him. “For saying yes.”

Keys, Barba thinks. Keys and shared closets. Sonny’s shoes by his next to the door. Decaffeinated coffee in his kitchen, and not by accident. Beer bottles sitting by the Chardonnay in his refrigerator door.

Yes.

The smell of the courthouse mingled with Sonny’s shampoo. Stupid, affectionate texts. A grin that never quite goes away. This warm little feeling in his heart every day, every single damn day that he wakes up up to Carisi’s hair in his face and those sure fingers between his thighs doing their best to wake him up and then being late to work because Sonny wants five more minutes and then Barba wants ten and by the time they’re done, Sonny has a bruise in the shape of Barba’s mouth too high on his throat to hide and Carisi’s proud of it, it turns him the fuck on to look in the mirror and be reminded that he belongs to Barba and that Barba belongs heart, body, and mind beyond all goddamn reason to Carisi.

Yes, yes.

It makes sense.

He’s grateful for the dark, though, grateful that, in this moment, Sonny can’t see his face. “Huh. Is that something you might want to hear again? Not right this second, but you know, later. In the future, at some point.”

“Duh,” Sonny says. Barba can feel the heat of his smile. “Of course I would. And I wouldn’t be opposed to right now, if you’d--”

“Sonny.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

He curls his fingers around Sonny’s face and lifts his head. The kiss is slow and impossibly sweet; the noise that Sonny makes when Barba pulls away even more so.

“No, not now. Goodnight, _carino_.”

"Mmm." Another kiss, followed by a grin that Barba is already addicted to, one he knows he’ll get to feel again in the morning, and many mornings after that. "Night, Raf.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title pretentiously borrowed from a line in Borges' "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius": "From the remote depths of the corridor, the mirror spied upon us."


End file.
